In mooring a boat to a pier or dock it is necessary to maintain a rope taut while allowing freedom in the mooring arrangement to allow the boat to move vertically with the tide. While numerous mooring arrangements are known in the prior art, these arrangements require complicated and difficult to use auxiliary devices. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,195,498 and 3,406,651 may be considered generally illustrative of prior art boat mooring arrangements.
Similar problems also arise in conjunction with guy lines used for supporting structures where a certain amount of freedom of elongation of the lines may be desirable in order to better sustain wind and ice loads.